COMM 3250U Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Social Constructionism, Heteronormativity, Heterosexuality
21 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
1. Human Sexuality
Theorizing Sexuality: Approaches and Debate
Review: The Politics of Sexuality
Social, political, and economic processes influence sexual arrangements
1. stigmatized sexual orientations: cultural and historical specificities à sexual
minorities as disenfranchised in modern era
2. Sexuality is a vehicle for displaced social anxieties à unrest and inequality (Rubin)
3. People who conform to societal standards for sexual desire and behaviors reap
rewards à enhanced social status (exotic pyramid)
Review: Michel Foucault and Discourse Analysis
‘The policing of sex’ à various ways that sexuality is organized, evaluated and
regulated (policed)
Revisionist approach to the history of sexuality
Victorian era (1800s): beginning of institutionalized discipline and concern over
people’s bodies and desires
4. Challenged idea that sexuality was repressed in sexuality
5. Discourses about sexuality multiplied
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
1. Discourse is a word to describe all aspects of knowledge production.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozWnquxkjIA Knowledge and Power (2
min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH8urZ4ryPE MCAT, Foucault: The History of
Sexuality (3 min)
Theoretical Approach: Social Constructionism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVCkJ7jLnz0, MCAT (3 min)
‘Social construct’: a name we give to a set of ideas and behaviors
6. Weak and extreme versions of this
7. A product of postmodern thought
For example: cross-gender and same-sex sexual behaviors existed in some Indigenous cultures
prior to European contact
8. Women played more egalitarian role in pre-contact society in public life in politics,
ie: matrilineal kinship among Anishinabe (Iroquois)
9. ‘homosexuality’ did not exist àsocially constructed and historically situated à
concepts of sex and gender in Indigenous culture do not conform to Euro. BINARY
(ie “Berdeche,” Two Spirit à 3rd and 4th genders)
10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDyaknNmg28, Two Spirit (5 min)
11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMdIZXOXpTQ, Sexuality Today (1 min)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
The policing of sex" various ways that sexuality is organized, evaluated and regulated (policed) Theoretical approach: social constructionism https://www. youtube. com/watch?v=gvckj7jlnz0, mcat (3 min) Social construct": a name we give to a set of ideas and behaviors: weak and extreme versions of this, a product of postmodern thought. Binary (ie berdeche, two spirit 3rd and 4th genders) 11. https://www. youtube. com/watch?v=idyaknnmg28, two spirit (5 min) https://www. youtube. com/watch?v=nmdizxoxptq, sexuality today (1 min) Assumption of heteronormativity (heterosexuality as neutral, normal, standard) organize understandings and experiences of euro. colonizers. Western observations of female and male are socially constructed (fausto-sterling, Gender must be considered through social discursive processes. This represents a postmodern rejection of truth and scientific advances. Fausto-sterling looks at medical discourses that determine the criteria for boys to become men (penis size) in instances of intersexed babies in us (1950s) Penis size is significant, as is the consistency of genetic markers (xx, xy) Masculine socialization is connected to penis size and legitimate masculinity.
